I have consistently maintained that Maduro will not relinquish Venezuela’s claim over Essequibo because he is “gambling for resurrection”, since “he done dead a’ready”. Venezuelans’ entrenched nationalistic belief that they were robbed by Britain of their Essequibo “birthright” remains a low-hanging fruit for him to exploit to maintain a modicum of legitimacy for his autocratic rule. As such, no one should have been surprised at his hysterical reaction to Britain’s decision to send a patrol boat of Georgetown after the Argyle Declaration of Dec 29. He denounced Britain as a “decadent, rotten ex-empire”, and warned them “not to mess” with Venezuelans, who are “warriors”. He then launched a “Military Joint Action General Domingo Sifontes” exercise that deployed 5682 soldiers; 3 ocean patrol vessels; 7 missile boats; 12 Sukhoi fighter jets and amphibious vehicles in manoeuvres to counter the HMS Trent’s 30 sailors. The operation’s name signals that Maduro’s sabre-rattling is not an idiosyncratic twitch, but his exploitation of historical forces that shape Venezuela’s national psyche.
Their 1810-1823 War of Independence from Spain coincided with Britain’s assuming control over the Dutch colonies of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice. Based on Dutch activities during the previous century, they considered that the border extended to the Orinoco, and also included the basin of the Cuyuni River. It is ironic that it was Venezuela that invoked the Monroe Doctrine in the 1890s by hiring an ex-American Consul to lobby the US Government to intervene on their behalf against British “imperial designs” in America’s hemisphere.
The US’ first enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine, against which Venezuela now protests so vehemently, led to the border dispute with Britain being settled by the award of the US-generated Arbitration Panel in 1899, which Venezuela rejected in 1962.
The contretemps goes back to the Dutch colonization of Essequibo in the early 17th century, when — as one scholar pointed out — one could only speak about “borderlands”, rather than “borders”. The Dutch influence extended to the Orinoco, where they struck alliances with several local Amerindian tribes. They also established a Post on the upper Cuyuni River to trade with Amerindians as early as 1680 in the Pariacot savannah, in what is now Venezuela. Conversely, the Spanish never established any post in what is now our Essequibo region, which they claim. The Cuyuni was used by runaway slaves from Dutch Essequibo plantations to seek refuge at posts established by several Spanish Monastic Orders. Control of the forested territory was attenuated and contested by both the Dutch and Spanish empires. In 1894, after gold was discovered in the upper Cuyuni basin, British miners moved in, and a group of British policemen occupied a Venezuelan fort on the river bank. However, a General Domingo Antonio Sifontes, who had laid claim to the area earlier in the year, expelled the British settlers from the area and took the policemen prisoners. This is the same General Sifontes whose name and memory Maduro invoked in last December’s euphonious military bluster against HMS Trent. The part of Bolivar state adjoining today’s Guyana is also named Sifontes.
But Maduro did not stop his historical war-invocation with the naming of the military show of force. On Jan 6th, 2024, as that operation ended, he raised the national anti-British, anti-Guyana patriotic fervor to new heights when he had the remains of Gen Sifontes exhumed in Tumeremo and transported in a military caravan to the Military Academy in Caracas. The remains were then taken to the National Pantheon in Caracas, where Sifontes was installed on the 9th January as a National Hero, alongside others like Simon Bolivar. In case anyone missed the point, Maduro tweeted, “We will offer the biggest military and popular honors to General Sifontes. We hold the standard of bravery with which he led the Battle of Cuyuní and drove away the English who occupied our territory.”
These actions should remind us that Maduro is assiduously cultivating Venezuela’s deep historical grievance over Essequibo, and reminding his military that they also have to expel the Guyanese successors of the British from Essequibo, which he insists is theirs. Maduro is therefore being very disingenuous when he accuses Guyana of not adhering to the spirit of the Argyle Declaration. He will continue to wage total war against us psychologically, economically, diplomatically, ideologically, and ultimately militarily.
He will not go quietly into the night following any “free and fair” elections, as some hope. We must prepare our necessary asymmetrical response.
